Harvey Weinstein. Charles Waterstreet. Dustin Hoffman. Jeffrey Tambor. Bill Cosby. Woody Allen. Terry Richardson. President Donald Trump. George H.W. Bush.
Don Burke.
All are powerful men accused of sexual misconduct.
The Dirty Old Man has, for a long time, run the world.
On this bonus episode of Out Loud, Holly, Rachel and Jessie discuss Don Burke and ask the question – what happens next?
The Dirty Old Man sits in the boardroom, and on a tattered stool in front of a flashing pokie machine.
The Dirty Old Man sits in the White House, and on a street corner, yelling profanities at women walking by.
The Dirty Old Man appears on our television screens, and alongside us on the bus, and next to us in the supermarket.
He slaps women on their rear as they walk past, laughing along with young men who guiltily think to themselves, “I can’t wait until I’m old enough to get away with anything…”
But sometimes, The Dirty Old Man isn’t even especially old.
Louis C.K. played the part of the lewd older man – a ‘creep’ who is not at all ashamed to hide it. Kevin Spacey fits the bill.
They are characterised almost as a victim of their own sexual and obscene preoccupations - a comic staple, while also being a rather tragic one.
The Dirty Old Man is the ultimate embodiment of 'I Don't Give A F*ck' grabbing what he wants and saying what no one else would dare to.
He was referenced in Roman times, and now sits inside golf clubs on Saturday afternoons, asking the bar tender if her breasts are real.
Perhaps he feels emasculated, not able to get the attention from women as easily as he once could. We live in a culture that represents anyone who is not stick thin, able-bodied and in their 20s as sexless, and maybe this is his way of 'I am still a sexual man'.
There is something desperate, something pathetic and something awfully sad about The Dirty Old Man. And that might just be the most dangerous thing about him.
No one wants to hurt him, you see.
He just comes from a different time, women (and men) reason. He's probably... losing it a bit. He might be grey, and wears his belt a little too high, and he has children and a wife.
That, we think, is not what a sexual predator looks like.
But the reign of The Dirty Old Man is coming to an end.
The laughter is slowly morphing into silence. The woman who once blushed and sat in the bathroom alone, humiliated, is telling somebody. And for the first time - in all of history - we are listening.
He was never funny and his advances towards unsuspecting women were never flattering, or truly harmless.
But what was a woman to do?
After all, The Dirty Old Man runs the world.
Today, however, The Dirty Old Man was told it is not his world to run anymore.
And if women continue to propel this revolution - as fiercely and as bravely as they have been - then soon the world will look very, very different.
Top Comments
Maybe now we should also turn our attention to the enablers ... the CEOs and Producers and Administrators of these Production companies and TV stations who knew what was happening but protected these pigs ... Let's not forget that Hey Dad actor who's in gaol. His boss knew what he was doing and turned a blind eye. These a-holes should be named and shamed alongside these perverts.
Because really, if these CEOs and producers and all the other "enablers" shut this shit down when it was first happening, then there wouldn't bee 50+ women coming out about Don right now ... they are just as bad, actually, they are WORSE, because they were in the ultimate position of power and chose the money-maker machine over the personal safety of another human being.
It makes me so sad to realise that these men who I watched on the screen as a child, whom I idolised are nothing more than predators who dehumanise women through their actions.
I had it recently where we celebrated a much loved member of our office as he made his way into retirement. He made an incredibly rude and crude comment about my breasts when I wished him well and as I stared at him in horror he laughed & shouted "what are you going to do? FIRE ME?!" It wasn't just the comment that hurt but that I had so much respect for him & held him in such high esteem, I was the one who helped him when he fell ill, I organised his party & present yet that's all he saw me as, an object to ogle. Now instead of remembering him with fondness it is with disdain and disgust